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13 Cartman's Incredible Gift

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First aired: 12/8/2004 Production Code: 813

Cartman suffers a head wound after trying to fly from the top of his roof. When he awakens, he believes he has psychic powers. When a serial killer comes to South Park, Cartman will use his gift to find him...or will he?

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1 Plot
Written by BOT, on 09-25-2007 19:22
Cartman attempts to fly by jumping off of his roof. He goes into a short coma, and wakes up in the hospital, where he shares a room with a victim of a serial killer. The killer cuts off the left hands of all his victims. Just as the police are lamenting the victim's death, Cartman manages to guess the hospital food's dinner and a few other paltry things (possibly because they had become routine by that point for Cartman), which leads the gullible cop Harrison Yates to believe that Cartman is a "child wunderkind" with psychic powers. Cartman is taken to the scene of one of the murders where he has "visions" of ice cream and Double Stuf Oreos (which no doubt have more to do with his own cravings than the actual crime). Yates makes the connection to Tom Johannsen, the owner of the ice-cream store, and he is arrested. Cartman ends up getting more innocent people arrested, including a group of rival "psychics". The left-hand murders continue, but the gullible cops believe these are copycat killings rather than being committed by a single killer (who is seen to be rather eccentric) still on the loose. At every crime scene a disturbed man appears, smiling, and wearing a blood-stained green raincoat. He creepily says to Kyle (who recognizes him as the killer almost immediately) , "They're never gunna catch the killer, he's too smart." then takes out an arm and legless female mannequin and pretends it's his mother, yelling for him to go home and have sex with her, he leaves the crime scene, yelling, "NO, Mommy!".

Kyle realizes that Cartman is a fraud, and is frustrated by the police's stupidity. Though Kyle has already figured out who the real serial killer is, he is completely ignored. Deciding he has to do something to stop the killer, he imitates Cartman's attempted flight so that he passes into a coma, and when he wakes up claims to have psychic powers and gives the police his original findings. Yates is skeptical but goes to investigate the suspected murderer anyway, who, by this point, has abducted Cartman, furious that the soi-disant psychic has failed to "recognize his work" and name him as the true killer.

When Yates arrives, he finds many hands on the killer's wall, but ignores them (mistaking them for right hands), and he leaves. Cartman was gagged throughout his stay, so Yates, not hearing him, left him captured. Later, after an intense police research montage, Yates realizes that left hands look like right hands when viewed a certain way, and returns to the house in the nick of time, saving Cartman and killing the murderer. Kyle is now hailed as the child psychic, but he explains that psychics are not real. Yates says that, really, he solved the case with "old-fashioned police work" anyway. But there is still one score to settle: the other "psychics" choose Cartman for a "final battle". But just as they begin to point at each other and make weird sounds, Kyle yells at them to stop, at which point the light bulbs in the room explode and some electronic devices fall off their shelf. Kyle is surprised, but asserts that there must be some logical explanation for that phenomenon.

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2 Trivia
Written by BOT, on 09-25-2007 19:23
* Ms. Crabtree dies, a victim of the serial killer. It was revealed for the first time that her first name was Veronica. Also of note is the fact that they seem to break the fourth wall by saying she was a lesser character the fans won't miss much.
* On this episode's DVD commentary, Trey Parker and Matt Stone were (at first) unable to remember a considerable amount of this episode:

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3 Cultural References
Written by BOT, on 09-25-2007 19:23
* When Butters tells Kyle not to fly too near to the Sun or else he will fall into the ocean he is talking about the Greek myth of Icarus, where his wings of wax melted when he flew too close to the Sun.
* When Cartman threatens to make Kyle's head explode, this is a reference to the movie Scanners.
* Most of Cartman's story arc in this episode — falling into a coma, waking up with "psychic abilities", and then searching for a killer — is based on Stephen King's The Dead Zone. The difference is that in The Dead Zone, the character's psychic powers are real.
* The killer bears many similarities to Stephen King's character Frank Dodd from The Dead Zone, in particular the fact that he wears a yellow raincoat when he kills. The killer also mentions that Cartman would be his nineteenth victim, a recurring number throughout King's works.
* The final scene, where Kyle accidentally blows up the lights with his mind, is a parody of Carrie.
* The word 'Paw' is written on the wall in the killer's dungeon, a reference to the film Saw, which also featured a deranged killer with a penchant for removing limbs from human bodies.
* The noise that accompanies Cartman's psychic powers is reminiscent of the noise made during Ty Webb's blindfolded putting scene in the film Caddyshack.
* The intensive police montage is a parody of the similar montages that take place during CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

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4 Red Dragon References
Written by BOT, on 09-25-2007 19:23
This episode relies on Thomas Harris' book Red Dragon heavily, especially in regards to the serial killer's scenes:

* The killer has a scar above his lip just as Francis Dolarhyde did in the book. His overall appearance and seems to parody the character as portrayed in Michael Mann's film adaptation, Manhunter (film).
* Cartman is bound to a wheelchair by the killer, just as Freddy Lounds was in Harris' book.
* The projector scene is a parody of Red Dragon as well. Cartman, just like Lounds, was forced to watch slide shows of the killer's "work".
* Also in that scene, the killer says "Do you see?" after every slide. Dolarhyde does this in the book in a sharp series of dialogue between himself and Lounds.
* The killer calls himself "God". Dolarhyde, in the book, had a God complex which was explained by Will Graham in a briefing to the police.
* The killer likes to cut the eyes out of photos. In Red Dragon, the killer cuts the eyes out of some of the photos in his scrapbook. Also, he inserts mirrors in the orbital sockets of the Jacobi and Leeds families, which would have a similar effect to cutting the eyes out of photos.
* The killer, like many serial killers, likes to return to the scene of the crime. Dolarhyde does this to a degree.
* Cartman tries to repent his 'sins'. Lounds does the same, regarding the lies he told in the Tattler.
* The policeman shoots the killer in the chest twice, then in the head numerous times, just as Molly Graham did in the movie.

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